Rachel Whiteread
I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is one of the most pioneering artists alive today, Rachel Whiteread. \n\nWorking across sculpture and drawing, in mediums ranging from concrete to resin, and in scales that go from miniscule to colossal \u2013 from casting domestic hot water bottles to entire immersive libraries \u2013 Whiteread is hailed for her poetic, stoic works that draw so intimately on our human experiences. \n\nDiscussing how her work gives, in her words \u201cauthority to forgotten things\u201d Whiteread\u2019s sculptures of the past three decades have not only made me rethink sculpture as a form and medium, but they have provided incredible commentary on the changes that have occurred \u2013 from the rapidly gentrifying London, the state of political change in 1990s and 2000s Britain, as well as imparting on us a reflection of impermanence and loss. \n\nAs someone born in the 90s, I grew up with Whiteread\u2019s work. Her sculptures were some of the first I ever saw and knew of as a kid and no matter what age we are, one can\u2019t help but be utterly stunned and fascinated by them. \n\nFamous for casting familiar objects and settings, from houses to the underneath of a chair, baths to doors, Whiteread takes elements we use in our everyday life, transforms them into ghostly replicas, and ultimately makes us rethink their purpose, practical use, and the memory that these objects once held. \n\nRaised in London to an artist mother and geography teacher father, who encouraged her to scavenge found objects and \u201clook up\u201d wherever she went, Whiteread studied at Brighton Polytechnic and sculpture, with the late and great Phyllida Barlow, at the Slade School of Fine Art in the 1980s. \n\nHer first solo exhibition in 1988, included her first series of cast objects, and in the early 1990s she made headlines with her sculpture House, a monumental, to-scale concrete cast of the inside of a three-storey townhouse. She has since taken over the Tate Modern\u2019s Turbine Hall, London\u2019s Fourth Plinth, created an extraordinary Holocaust Memorial in Vienna that resembles the shelves of a library with the pages turned outwards, has had major exhibitions and retrospectives all over the world and is still continuing to push forth all boundaries of sculpture in the most exciting and impactful ways.\n\nTHIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE LEVETT COLLECTION: \n\nhttps://www.instagram.com/famm.mougins // https://www.merrellpublishers.com/9781858947037\n\nENJOY!!!\n\nFollow us:\nKaty Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel\nSound editing by Nada Smiljanic\nMusic by Ben Wetherfield\n\nhttps://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/